Monday, June 16, 2008

time in a box

Though I've read through the Bible many times, I find verses that I have seemingly never noticed before. Verses that are perfectly appropriate for my needs that day.

One of the jobs I have set before myself is to get this family history chronologically organized and properly labeled. It is a somewhat daunting task but with God's help I will do it.

Yesterday in my devotional time I read this verse:

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: .....a time to keep and a time to throw away...."

Ecclesiastes 3:1; 6b

I'm asking for God's wisdom as I organize all this stuff (probably 10 boxes worth?) and discern whether it is time to keep or throw away certain items. (Or Ebay?)

Think I can get it done in a month?

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I heard a gasp on the other end of the line recently as I was telling someone that I had thrown out my high school yearbooks before we moved. I cut out a few pictures of close (at the time) friends and pitched the rest. My high school graduating class numbered 880, so these books were very big. I don't think I will miss them at all. And I am positive my kids would not have wanted them.

It is fairly easy for me to deal with my own personal history. But the rest of the family history has been saved for decades. We are the current curators.

So, how about you? Are you a packrat or a pitch-er? Any guidelines you'd like to give me as I sort through 150 years of family papers and pictures?

3 comments:

Packrat, not really, but I do have scads of fabric and scrapbooking stuff. Once I started knitting I just had to have every color. :)

As for the family history, I think a scrapbook would be one way to do it. Have you every seen any of the "Museum in a Book" books? They have slots for documents and envelopes with letters (or other items) to look in and open. That's one way to do it. Or you could concentrate on a decade at a time, using a few pages for each decade, depending on how much you have.